Expression Of MTOR In Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma And Its Correlation With Cancer Malignancy And The Level Of Immune Response In Patients

Objective:This study is aimed to investigatethe role of mTOR pathway in cancer cells and cancer-related T cells. For the objective, we analyzed the expression level of mTOR-related-proteins in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma tissues, pericarcinous tissues and T cell subpopulations, and detected the ratio of subpopulations in T cells populations, especially Treg cells. Further, we analyzed the correlation of mTOR pathway with the basic characters of patients, including sex, age and levels of T subpopulations.Methods:40 patients diagnosed with ESCC or ESCP were involved in the study. The tumor samples were collected post operation, meanwhile, the peripheral blood samples, serums and peripheral blood mononuclear cells were collected, respectively. We analyzed the expression of mTOR by immunohistochemistry and the mRNA level of mTOR and raptor by Real Time PCRin tumor samples.The FACS was used to detected the ratio of T subpopulation in peripheral blood samples and the level of phosphorylation-tuberous sclerosis complex 2 (p-TSC2) and phosphorylation-mTOR (p-mTOR).Results:The immunohistochemistryanalysis showed that the expression of mTOR in ESCC was higher than in ESCP. RT-PCR showed that the relative expression of mTOR and raptor in ESCC (Ratio=2.2+0.014,1.8+0.03) was significantly higher than in ESCP (Ratio=0.3±0.009,0.4±0.019) (P<0.05). The ratio of CD4+T cells (29.3±0.12) and CD3+T cells (63.7±0.25) in esophageal squamous cellcarcinoma were lower than health controls (38.9±0.27 and 74.7±0.17, respectively), however,without significance. Nevertheless, the ratio of CD4+CD25+CD127-regulatory T cells (8.5±0.21) in esophageal squamous cellcarcinoma were significantly higher than health controls (3.1±0.29) (P<0.01).Conclusions:The signal pathway of mTOR is abnormal activated both in tumor cells and T cells from esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, which might be involved in the proliferation of tumor cells. Moreover, the mechanism of promoting tumor by the T cells with abnormal activation of mTOR may be mediated by induced common T cells to Treg cells.